Policy Manager provides an enterprise-class UDDIv3 registry with a role-based JSR-168 compliant Web-based portal interface to ensure that different users have easy access to the features and capabilities they need and use the most.

Policy Manager provides comprehensive SOA Governance tools for all the different roles in the organization including; service developer, consumer developer, architect, business stakeholder, IT operations, security operations, and more. It uses a role-based security model for authorization of policy-driven SOA Governance process control such as service publishing and provisioning process approvals, and to protect sensitive information.

Policy Manager defines, monitors, and manages Active Contracts between consumers and providers. These contracts are created through a negotiation process, supported by ad-hoc collaboration between vested constituents and can be enforced by a standards-based SOA run-time security and management solution like Service Manager. They define the specific policy sets that will be used and enforced, the SLAs and alerts the service commits to, and the access profile and capacity granted to the consumer.

Use metrics and reports from the run-time system to validate that running services comply with defined run-time policies

Capture performance and usage metrics according to policies

Statistically and algorithmically capture comprehensive message data

Track and manage security and other policy exceptions

Compare and reconcile collected metrics with policies for audit purposes

Contract Management

Policy Manager uses Active Contracts to:

Manage relationships between service consumers and providers

Provide a process allowing the negotiation of policies, SLAs,and capabilities between consumer and provider

Enforce a contract that tracks this relationship

Provide notifications on changes

Deliver consumer-led service and policy definition

Consumers can request a service (WSDL) with constraints and capabilities (policy) they would like to use, and allow organizations to fulfill this by negotiating and implementing the agreed policies and services

Manage the supply and demand equation for services with a contract-based provisioning process for:

Capacity planning

Version management

Service deprecation

Mapping relationships between services for impact and exception analysis and reporting

Value Management

Policy Manager provides SOA value management capabilities, it can:

Measure and manage the value and effectiveness of SOA in the organization

Assign real or arbitrary value to service transactions for billing or tracking purposes

Monitor which parts of an organization are publishing services that have broad value to the business

Monitor which parts of an organization are reducing costs by consuming services provided by others

Monitor which parts of an organization need further encouragement to adopt SOA